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Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

... and I still cannot believe how we throughly blew that game. It was right there for the taking and we screwed the pooch big time.

Better coaching and we win that game.... period. ISU overall played much better than Iowa did, even the Big Ten Network's announcers said so. We basically moved the ball at will on them for most of the game.

There were just a few plays that did us in. One delay of game penalty (surprise surprise) killed one drive inside Iowa's redzone. Then on another drive, Bates scrambled for a first down inside Iowa's 5 yd line and the ref gave us a terrible mark one yard short of the 1st down, and it wasn't even close, but Chizik didn't have them check the replay for whatever reason? And then the completely bogus call on LJ for his hit on Moeaki. Iowa took that 15 yd penalty and avoided the turnover and scored a TD on that drive. And then of course, Mahoney missed 3 FGs, but he was a true freshman on a soaking wet joke of a football field on a huge stage... I can't hardly blame him for anything.... not to mention at least one snap was VERY bad.

But.... a good coaching staff would have won that game for ISU. Go back and watch it for yourself. Our guys outplayed Iowa for most of that game, and a good coaching staff would have found a way to win it IMO.

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

You can't blame Mahoney too much, alot has to be placed on the offense for not converting in the red zone. There is no question that if we had converted in the red zone, it would have been a blow out ISU win. Of course, some credit has to be given to Iowa, but we struggled in the red zone all year so I'm not going to give them to much credit.

People always talk about how bad we were last year and how lacking we are for talent, but if could have just executed better, we could have easily won the Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and KState games which would have put us in a bowl game. That doesn't sound like a team that needs significant improvement to just become good enough for Div 1, that's what alot of people seem to think anyway.

I know we always play these what if games to make us feel better about our season, but last season more than any other season, I felt like we had the talent but lacked the desire and the coaching.

edit- I forgot about the A&M and the UNLV games they were also fairly close. If all the breaks had gone our way, that would have been a 8 win season. Of course rarely does all the breaks go our way, but last year all the breaks went against us which is usually a sign of underlying problems.

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

Originally Posted by jaretac

You can't blame Mahoney too much, alot has to be placed on the offense for not converting in the red zone. There is no question that if we had converted in the red zone, it would have been a blow out ISU win. Of course, some credit has to be given to Iowa, but we struggled in the red zone all year so I'm not going to give them to much credit.

People always talk about how bad we were last year and how lacking we are for talent, but if could have just executed better, we could have easily won the Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and KState games which would have put us in a bowl game. That doesn't sound like a team that needs significant improvement to just become good enough for Div 1, that's what alot of people seem to think anyway.

I know we always play these what if games to make us feel better about our season, but last season more than any other season, I felt like we had the talent but lacked the desire and the coaching.

edit- I forgot about the A&M game that was also fairly close.

You could also include the UNLV game too. Arnaud and Sumrall connect on that TD but someone doesn't go for two...

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

Originally Posted by jaretac

You can't blame Mahoney too much, alot has to be placed on the offense for not converting in the red zone. There is no question that if we had converted in the red zone, it would have been a blow out ISU win. Of course, some credit has to be given to Iowa, but we struggled in the red zone all year so I'm not going to give them to much credit.

People always talk about how bad we were last year and how lacking we are for talent, but if could have just executed better, we could have easily won the Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, and KState games which would have put us in a bowl game. That doesn't sound like a team that needs significant improvement to just become good enough for Div 1, that's what alot of people seem to think anyway.

I know we always play these what if games to make us feel better about our season, but last season more than any other season, I felt like we had the talent but lacked the desire and the coaching.

edit- I forgot about the A&M and the UNLV games they were also fairly close. If all the breaks had gone our way, that would have been a 8 win season. Of course rarely does all the breaks go our way, but last year all the breaks went against us which is usually a sign of underlying problems.

I didn't blame Mahoney too much. He was put in a VERY tough situation for a true freshman in a big instate rivarly game on the road on one of the worst football fields in the country (thank goodness they put in field turf this summer). If we had better coaching, Mahoney would not have been in those situations.

I still can't believe Chizwhiz didn't ask for a replay of Bates scramble inside the 5 yd line? He was EASILY over the marker when his foot touched the sideline.

Another HUGE play that we didn't make was Colin Franklin's drop. That actually was a good play call, but the Iowa LB somehow stripped that ball out on the way down.

Very frustrating loss for the way we dominated that 2nd half. Oh well. The game is about SCORING points... not moving the ball up and down the field almost at will.

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

I just finished watching it too. Say whatever you want about not executing, but the fact of the matter is that whenever you guys got near the red zone, Iowa's defensive backs completely shut down your receivers. Nobody was getting open within 20 yards of the end zone and that, coupled with iowa shutting down your running game was what did you in. I believe Iowa missed a couple field goals too that game. However ISU did very well to have it tied into the fourth quarter. It will be a fun game this year, hopefully on a dry track!

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

Originally Posted by Darko

I just finished watching it too. Say whatever you want about not executing, but the fact of the matter is that whenever you guys got near the red zone, Iowa's defensive backs completely shut down your receivers. Nobody was getting open within 20 yards of the end zone and that, coupled with iowa shutting down your running game was what did you in. I believe Iowa missed a couple field goals too that game. However ISU did very well to have it tied into the fourth quarter. It will be a fun game this year, hopefully on a dry track!

We were #108 of 119 FBS teams last year, in red zone offense. As I said, some credit has to be given to Iowa, afterall, you were the only team to keep us out of the endzone all year. But, the facts speak for themselves, ISU was awful in the red zone last year.

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

Originally Posted by Darko

I just finished watching it too. Say whatever you want about not executing, but the fact of the matter is that whenever you guys got near the red zone, Iowa's defensive backs completely shut down your receivers. Nobody was getting open within 20 yards of the end zone and that, coupled with iowa shutting down your running game was what did you in. I believe Iowa missed a couple field goals too that game. However ISU did very well to have it tied into the fourth quarter. It will be a fun game this year, hopefully on a dry track!

ISU's lack of success in Iowa's redzone was a combination of things. First, we were completely disorganized and could not get the play in on time on many occasions. Second, some really bad play calls on our part. Third, when we couldn't convert TDs, we also couldn't hit FGs either. Fourth, one horrible spot by a ref that probably cost us a TD. And fifth... yes Iowa's defense did get better in the redzone, but most defenses do when the field gets shrunk down so much.

That's one thing that scares me to death about the spread offense and especially the super spread offense that Herman is bringing. Are we going to be able to score TDs in the redzone? It would be interesting to see how well Rice converted TDs in the redzone last year? The spread, by definition, works well when you have a large field ahead of you to spread the defense out all over the field to cover you. But when you get down to the 10 yd line and the defense only has to cover a very small amount of space... can you convert down there? Do you have the ability to power the ball into the endzone down there? If you don't have much of a power running game at all, it can be very tough for a spread team to punch it in IMO. Hopefully that is where Schwartz and Bo can help us? Put the ball into their hands and let them run over people to the endzone. I can't stand the lob ball to the back corner of the endzone. Just line up and power it in.

Re: Just saw replay of last year's Iowa-ISU game on BTN...

Originally Posted by Darko

I just finished watching it too. Say whatever you want about not executing, but the fact of the matter is that whenever you guys got near the red zone, Iowa's defensive backs completely shut down your receivers. Nobody was getting open within 20 yards of the end zone and that, coupled with iowa shutting down your running game was what did you in. I believe Iowa missed a couple field goals too that game. However ISU did very well to have it tied into the fourth quarter. It will be a fun game this year, hopefully on a dry track!

Franklin had two TD catches slip through his hands. If he could have held onto that first one then the game could have been completely different.

One thing that I noticed was how bad Stanzi played. I guess I didn't remember how Christenson saved them last year. And yes even after 10 months of calming down, that call against LJ was complete BS. Moeaki was the one that lead with his helmet not LJ.

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